Science

How do more than one species coexist in the same place when they compete for the same resources? Why are there twice as many species in one ecosystem as in another? These are some of the most puzzling questions in ecology. I study the zooplankton biodiversity of freshwater lakes and ponds. Specifically, the crustacean zooplankton of the Atlantic Coastal […]

My work in theoretical epidemiology focuses on developing models, data pipelines, and analysis for combating animal and human diseases. As part of the MIDAS network, I organized a working group that developed models in near real time during the 2013-2015 epidemic. Our first Ebola project sought to quantify the potential severity of the epidemic under different intervention scenarios. We then extended […]

Constructed ecosystems or “ecosystems in a bottle” — called microcosms — are used to test theories in population dynamics. Study organisms include Daphnia (a genus of zooplankton), Aphanizomenon (a blue green alga), Saccharomyces (yeast), and Vibrio fischeri (a bacterium that forms a symbiosis with bobtail squid). Some outcomes of this work include the first experimental demonstrations of density […]